THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 17, 1995 TAG: 9511170656
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Whenever I shop in an upscale store I take my mother along. She knows class, I know Kmart.
That's why I gave her a call last week when I gave in to the urge to go over to Hardy's Diamonds to look at a showing of the late Joan Crawford's baubles and bangles.
It was a somewhat frightening decision for a woman whose entire jewelry collection consists of a box full of pop-it beads, den mother awards and ``I Like Ike'' buttons.
I called my mother for help.
``I'd be delighted to go,'' she said, her tasteful gold chains clinking slightly against the receiver.
And so it was that at 2:30 on Friday she and I were seated in front of a case full of charm bracelets, rings, necklaces and pins once worn by the lady who gave the words ``Mommie Dearest'' a whole new meaning.
If I had been concerned about entering so fine a store as Hardy's, I needn't have been.
Mary Ann Taylor, the store's bookkeeper and resident movie buff, immediately put me at ease.
``Here, try this on,'' she suggested, handing me a gold bracelet with a chain strong enough to restrain a Rottweiler and charms as big as jelly jar tops.
Instinctively, I looked to Mother for permission. I needn't have bothered. She already was wearing a similar bracelet, a 75-carat amethyst ring and a gold poodle pin with ruby eyes.
She appeared to have gone into some kind of trance, as if she had willed herself back to an Oscar night in the late 1940s.
It was heady stuff, sitting there as Taylor brought one piece after another out of the case, encouraged us to try them on and showed us pictures from a large coffee-table book of Crawford with the same pieces.
One in particular intrigued me. It was of a platinum and diamond baguette necklace draped over a Stork Club ash tray.
``Hey, I've got one of those!'' I yelled. ``The necklace?'' Taylor and Mother both asked.
``No, the Stork Club ash tray. I brought it home the night Bill and I went there for his Kings Point graduation party.'' Mother rolled her eyes. Taylor was more charitable. ``Oh, it would have been nice to have had it for the show. We could have displayed the necklace just like it is in the book,'' she said.
Later, I left Mother looking at another case full of antique and period jewelry while I talked with Betsy Hardy, the fourth generation of the family to be in the jewelry business in Virginia. It was she who had organized the displays for the store's fifth annual antique and estate jewelry show and sale.
One of the first things Hardy did was to set me straight about the term ``estate jewelry''.
``All that means is that it was previously owned,'' she explained. Hardy prefers to use the term ``antique and period'' when she talks about the kind of estate pieces in which the family store deals.
``By definition, antique refers to any piece over 100 years old,'' she said. Period jewelry, on the other hand, could be newer. Hardy's handles 20th century items from the Art Deco, Art Nouveau and even Retro (World War II) periods.
The show, which ran Friday and Saturday, had been preceded on Thursday evening by a public lecture by antique jewelry expert Peter Storm, who was on hand in the store on Friday and Saturday.
``Even the husbands who were dragged in by their wives came up afterwards to tell me how much they had enjoyed it,'' the personable Storm said.
``I'm sure they did,'' my mother responded, her eyes once again glazed as she clutched a diamond brooch the size of her fist. Storm was offering it for sale, and Mother appeared to be in a buying mood.
We were getting into dangerous territory here. Social Security and New York State retirement will only stretch so far. Given her choice, I was afraid she might choose jewels over such nonessentials as food and shelter.
I turned back to Hardy for a few moments while Mother sat transfixed in front of Storm's elegant baubles.
``We try to do an antique show and lecture each year,'' Hardy explained, ``but the celebrity jewelry is something new. We found out that the collection was available, so we added it.''
I asked if there would be a celebrity tie-in for next year's show. Hardy said they were thinking about it and that they would welcome suggestions.
I was about to mention Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwick when I caught a glimpse of Mother fingering her credit card case.
I quickly thanked Hardy and Taylor for their hospitality, pried my mother from her chair and beat a hasty retreat.
``Just think,'' she said as she returned her unused credit card to its case, ``I actually got to wear Joan Crawford's charm bracelet.''
And I, I thought to myself, got you out of there just in time.
Then I went home, looked at my pop-it beads and den mother pins and fought the urge to return to Hardy's and plop down my own credit card in exchange for a real piece of class. Something that would look good draped over my Stork Club ash tray. by CNB